Icardi brace res­cues De Boer

Mauro Icardi may well have res­cued Frank de Boer’s In­ter job with a brace to sink Sin­isa Mi­ha­jlovic’s Torino 2-1.

This was the last chance sa­loon for De Boer after three con­sec­u­tive Serie A de­feats and he hosted a Toro side un­beaten in six. Gary Medel started a three-match ban with Ge­of­frey Kon­dog­bia in­jured, while Ever Banega re­turned to push Ivan Perisic on to the bench. Torino missed Le­an­dro Cas­tan, but Adem Lja­jic and Sin­isa Mi­ha­jlovic were ea­ger to make a point against their for­mer club. So was Maxi Lopez, the ex­hus­band of Mauro Icardi’s wife Wanda Nara, as the pair had a bit­ter fall­ing out.

Toro had won the last two edi­tions of this fix­ture and were com­fort­ably on bet­ter form go­ing in, so con­fi­dence among the home fans was low.

Joao Mario and An­to­nio Can­dreva’s vol­ley whis­tled just wide, while Eder blasted over and Mauro Icardi just failed to get his head to a Can­dreva cross.

In­ter took the lead when Can- dreva’s through ball al­lowed Icardi to spring the off­side trap and Joe Hart seemed to get to it first, but meekly pushed it on to the Ar­gen­tine’s shin and it ric­o­cheted into the net.

An Adem Lja­jic free kick hit the wall after Joao Mi­randa was rather fool­ishly caught in pos­ses­sion. Marcelo Bro­zovic wasted a counter by fir­ing it straight at Hart, then turn­ing the re­bound on to the roof of the net.

It proved costly, as An­drea Belotti made the most of some com­i­cal de­fend­ing to draw Torino level. He chested for­ward a long ball, Cris­tian An­saldi and Jei­son Murillo lit­er­ally ran into each other and Il Gallo was free to smash into the roof of the net.

Bro­zovic some­how failed to score when his header a yard from an open goal was straight at the back of Emil­iano Moretti on the line.

Can­dreva also missed a sit­ter, nod­ding wide from Eder’s cross, and Luca Ros­set­tini flung him­self in the way of another Can­dreva strike.